A mixed methods study to evaluate participatory mapping for rural water safety planning in western Kenya

PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE A mixed methods study to evaluate participatory mapping for rural water safety planning in western Kenya Joseph Okotto-Okotto1, Weiyu Yu ID2, Emmah Kwoba ID3, Samuel M. Thumbi3,4,5, Lorna Grace Okotto6, Peggy Wanza3, Diogo Trajano Gomes da Silva7, Jim Wright ID2* a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 1 Victoria Institute for Research on Environment and Development (VIRED) International, Rabuor, Kisumu, Kenya, 2 School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, United Kingdom, 3 Centre for Global Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kisumu, Kenya, 4 Paul G Allen School for Global Animal Health, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, United States of America, 5 Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya, 6 School of Spatial Planning and Natural Resource Management, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Bondo, Kenya, 7 School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Brighton, United Kingdom * OPEN ACCESS Citation: Okotto-Okotto J, Yu W, Kwoba E, Thumbi SM, Okotto LG, Wanza P, et al. (2021) A mixed methods study to evaluate participatory mapping for rural water safety planning in western Kenya. PLoS ONE 16(7): e0255286. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0255286 Editor: Frank Onderi Masese, University of Eldoret, KENYA Received: September 9, 2020 Accepted: July 13, 2021 Published: July 28, 2021 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255286 Copyright: © 2021 Okotto-Okotto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Water source survey data are available from http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/ UKDA-SN-853860, whilst participatory mapping data sets are available from http://dx.doi.org/10. Abstract Water safety planning is an approach to ensure safe drinking-water access through comprehensive risk assessment and water supply management from catchment to consumer. However, its uptake remains low in rural areas. Participatory mapping, the process of map creation for resource management by local communities, has yet to be used for rural water safety planning. In this mixed methods study, to evaluate the validity of participatory mapping outputs for rural water safety planning and assess community understanding of water safety, 140 community members in Siaya County, Kenya, attended ten village-level participatory mapping sessions. They mapped drinking-water sources, ranked their safety and mapped potential contamination hazards. Findings were triangulated against a questionnaire survey of 234 households, conducted in parallel. In contrast to source type ranking for international monitoring, workshop participants ranked rainwater’s safety above piped water and identified source types such as broken pipes not explicitly recorded in water source typologies often used for formal monitoring. Participatory mapping also highlighted the overlap between livestock grazing areas and household water sources. These findings were corroborated by the household survey and subsequent participatory meetings. However, comparison with household survey data suggested participatory mapping outputs omitted some water sources and landscape-scale contamination hazards, such as open defecation areas or flood-prone areas. In follow-up visits, participant groups ranked remediation of rainwater harvesting systems as the most acceptable intervention to address hazards. We conclude that participatory mapping can complement other established approaches to rural water safety planning by capturing informally managed source use and facilitating community engagement. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255286 July 28, 2021 1 / 16 PLOS ONE 5255/UKDA-SN-853705. Questionnaire survey data are available from https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/ UKDA-SN-854302. Funding: JAW, DGS, JOO, SMT. UK Medical Research Council (https://mrc.ukri.org/) & Department for International Development (https:// www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreigncommonwealth-development-office). Grant Ref.: MR/P024920/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Participatory mapping for rural water safety planning in western Kenya Introduction Water safety planning is an approach to ensuring safe water access through comprehensive risk assessment and management at all water supply stages from catchment to consumer [1], promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) [2]. Water safety planning entails the systematic identification of hazards between catchment and point-of-use within a water supply system and their management through identification of critical control points necessary for making that source safe for human consumption, documented via a Water Safety Plan (WSP). It was initially developed for urban utilities, but even in urban areas, its uptake has been slow globally [3]. Generally, Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind other world regions, with initial uptake in Uganda by 2011 [4], and subsequent more widespread uptake elsewhere in Africa including by Kenyan utilities [5]. Further challenges exist in promoting uptake of water safety planning in rural areas. Particularly in developing countries, limited resources and remoteness make the dissemination and uptake of such procedures challenging. These factors also inhibit water quality testing, an essential part of a WSP [6, 7]. The rural WSP workflow recognises that many rural water supply systems (e.g.: boreholes, protected wells and small-scale rainwater harvesting or piped systems) are managed by communities, sometimes via water user committees, rather than trained water sector professionals. Among community members, who have not received specialised professional training, perceptions of contamination hazards may differ from those of professionals, with consequent implications for hazard management [6]. Where community-managed supplies exist, water safety education that target communities requires different approaches from those targeted at water sector professionals [7, 8]. In rural areas, use of multiple water sources for different purposes and in different seasons is also very common, an idea encapsulated in the concept of multiple use water services [9], now being incorporated into rural participatory water planning [1 (...truncated)